Idea 123 of 500. Cluster 6: Food and drink as export, not just hospitality
Ceylon coffee roasteries
The mechanism, from the book
Dilmah says it earns over 3 times the national average price for tea, because it does its own blending, branding and packing. The proof has been sitting inside the industry all along.
Every idea in cluster 6 uses this mechanism.
A first step
Get one sack of green beans from a hill-country grower, roast small batches on a borrowed or second-hand roaster, and pack 250 g bags naming the estate. Take them to five cafés and offer a free tasting against what they brew now. Ask whether they would switch for a month at a stated price. One café saying yes is a customer.
- Who pays first
- A café owner who wants to serve coffee grown on the island and tell customers exactly which estate it came from.
- What leaves today
- Coffee grown here is sold as green beans or not at all, and the roasting, which carries the margin and the name, happens elsewhere.
The idea and the mechanism are from the book. The first step was written for this site as a suggestion; if you know a better one, say so.
The test
Does it keep value that now leaves the island, or build the proof that lets somebody else do so?
The only test any idea on this site has to pass. The four rules that go with it are here.
In the book
- Ch. ElevenThe Mechanisms
What a brand and an owned variety are worth, from the kiwifruit growers - Ch. TwoAn Island Nobody Has Counted
The island's spices: pepper, cardamom, cloves and nutmeg
More from cluster 6
- 121Organic farm-to-table restaurants using genuinely local produce
- 122Single-origin chocolate using Sri Lankan spices
- 124Herbal tea ranges: cinnamon, lemongrass, ginger
- 125Coconut-based dessert cafés and product lines
- 126King coconut water, bottled and branded for export
- 127Premium chilli sauces, chutneys and preserves
Idea 123 of the 500 in the appendix of Why Not Sri Lanka? Every one can be started by one person, one family or one small firm.